Port Commissioners To Consider Lane Field Hotels

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

City News Service

The Port of San Diego Board of Commissioners is scheduled today to consider preliminary approval of a project that could result in as many as three high-rise hotels being built near the foot of Broadway.

The project is set for 5.5-acre Lane Field, once the site of a stadium for the former minor league Padres, on what is now a parking lot for the cruise ship terminal.

Port planners have divided the lot in half. Two of the 14-floor hotels would be on the northern half of the property. Work on the southern part would be delayed for now but could include a third hotel, according to a port staff report.

Plans call for a 250-room hotel to be of the quality of a Hilton Garden Inn or better, and a 150-unit extended-stay hotel to be along the lines of a Homewood Suites or better. Original plans for more upscale lodging, approved by the commissioners in 2006 and 2007, collapsed because of the recession, the staff report said.

The plans also provide for open space, a plaza, ground-floor retail shops and restaurants, and a 442-space parking garage. The port says the blueprint under consideration fits within the North Embarcadero Visionary Plan, which envisions the overall renovation of San Diego's downtown waterfront.

The commissioners will be asked to approve the port staff's review of the project. The California Coastal Commission is scheduled to consider issuing a permit this fall.

The developers hope to break ground next spring, according to U-T San Diego.